Assassination 101: Day 1

“They tried and failed, all of them?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “They tried and died.”
-Paul Atreides and Gaius Helen Mohiam

(A small piece that I started working on in a writer’s guild meeting. I’ve expanded it a bit, and might continue it down the line.)

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Assassination 101: Day 1

My name is- well no, I can’t tell you my real name. Being an elite assassin carries many wonderful perks which sadly translate well onto the social circle. After all, I can’t just walk into a bar, find a pretty girl, and say “Hi, I’m an assassin!” It tends to be a conversation killer, if not a complete and total room clearer.

A friend of mine, name’s Flonne, tried this technique once on her first assignment. I can mention her name because she did not last very long in the field. She was a promising candidate in the classroom, if not a bit, shall we say breezy. In her haste to look good on her first assignment she overlooked the first rule of being an assassin: silence is everything.

Did I mention a classroom? Oh yes, the path to becoming an assassin is quite long and treacherous. Many prospective candidates endeavor themselves worthy of trying to walk in the shadows, yet very few succeed. If you want to have a remote chance of being an assassin, you have to pass a basic class known as assassination 101.

I remember my first day of Assassination 101 like it was yesterday. The class took place in a packed lecture hall of 200 students. The professor, after quite literally appearing at the podium located in the front center of the room introduced himself as a world-class assassin who would hence be referred to as Professor P.

Professor P surveyed the class with a grim look, his dark brown eyes taking a few seconds to linger on the faces of each and every student in the lecture hall. When our eyes met, I felt myself cringe uncontrollably from my position in the left-central section of the lecture hall. My mouth uttered the slightest, inaudible shout as what felt like an icy dagger pierced into my brain. Eternity passed in a second as I struggled to remain focused. Suddenly the pain went away, and I felt a voice in my head.

“Classroom Name: Nigredo. Specialty: Shadow Puppetry”

As the voice dissipated and I regained control of my senses, I noticed that the professor had already moved on to the back part of the room. With a cautious glance around the room, I noticed a dazed look in the eyes of many, with two students near the front row slumped over on their desks, unmoving.

“Satisfactory,” Professor P said as he finished his examination. “Now, would anyone care to hazard a guess as to the first rule of assassination?”

A hand shot up from the student on my left. The student was a small, eager looking guy that, well describing him is not really that important of a detail. The professor looked at the guy and nodded gravely. That grave nod on the other hand…that would be a very important detail.

“Well, is it-” The guy began to ask.

*Thoosh!*

Before anyone could even blink a throwing star appeared in the forehead of the question asker, directly between his eyes. He slumped over the desk in front of him, quite dead. I nervously shifted myself slightly to the right to avoid the blood quickly pooling on the desk. While I did this, I couldn’t help but note the suddenness of the throwing star. I had been looking at Professor P the entire time, yet I didn’t even see the slightest bit of movement from his arms, which had remained neatly folded on the podium. Oh yes, this guy was good.

“Incorrect,” Professor P said, a slight bit of amusement escaping the edges of his voice. “Would anyone else care to risk a guess?”

Silence filled the room for several long dark seconds before Professor P spoke again.

“Very good class. Silence is the first and most important step to becoming an assassin.”

Professor P glanced at the dead student next to me before continuing.

“Now let’s be perfectly clear. There is no failure in this class. Well, not in the traditional sense anyway. There are no f’s, no e’s, for in this class, failure means death.”

My face concealed a hidden smile as the professor began covering the syllabus for the class. This was going to be a fun semester.

Where the WIld Things Are - 10 Sentence Review

Let the wild rumpus start!
-Max

Note: The person I went to see this with suggested that I write the review in ten sentences in honor of the book. I am taking her challenge one step further and not only writing it in ten sentences but also writing it in 338 words, the word count of the book.

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Turning a ten sentence book into a ninety-minute movie is no small feat, yet Where the Wild Things Are manages to effectively make the transition. The result is a film that not only builds upon the plot of the book, but delivers a powerful message of life, growing up, and learning to accept both the good and the bad along the way.

The basic premise of the movie follows that of the book: young Max gets frustrated with his mother, escapes to a surreal world of monsters, and quickly becomes their king. Most of the book’s plot is quickly glossed over in the first half an hour as Max befriends the scary monsters and engages in a brief wild rumpus party just like in the book. The film then proceeds to dive into more original, serious subject matter as Max and the monsters come to blows over Max’s leadership as it revolves around the construction of the ultimate house, and the wild things (and Max’s) conflicting ideals over who should take part in their happy little clubhouse.

While the early parts of the film were nothing to sneeze at (although there is one rather disturbing scene with the world’s most traumatizing elementary school teacher preaching the apocalypse to a bunch of kids) the true beauty comes when the original story takes over. Max’s attempt to create a perfect world and the subsequent consequences that result illustrate the complex duality of human life. Although we cannot create a perfect world where loneliness can be forever crushed and a sadness shield keeps out everything bad, we can learn to accept our troubles for what they are and grow to accept both the good and bad that will always be present in life. Truthfully, I consider it fortunate that Disney never got their hands on this book, for their desire to see a storybook ending would not due the book justice.

In short, Where the Wild Things Are provides a fantastic storytelling adventure that both kids and adults alike will appreciate.

Return of the Living Dead Review

You made me hurt myself again! I broke my hand off completely at the wrist this time, Tina! But that’s okay, Darlin’, because I love you, and that’s why you have to let me EAT YOUR BRAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIINS!

-Freddy

Back in the day a classic film known as Night of the Living Dead was unveiled into the world. Night provides the foundation for pretty much every zombie movie in existence. Return of the Living Dead is a tongue-in-cheek parody that selflessly takes the ideas behind Night and twists them into a tangled mess of laughably bad acting, somewhat weak comedy, and plot confusion.

The premise is pretty simple being a zombie movie and all. Two medical warehouse employees end up accidentally opening some secret military canister that unleashes an evil mutant zombie. In the ensuing attempt to get rid of it through incineration, the chemicals the zombie carried result in an allergic reaction with the atmosphere, bringing forth a rainstorm that causes the dead to awaken from the conveniently located next-door cemetery.

There are two defining groups of characters operating in this movie. On one side, you have the employees of the medical building and the poor mortician that gets dragged into the mess. On the other side, you have a group of teenage hooligans that as one of my friends expertly pointed out represent all of the most disturbing trends of the 80’s in one convenient package. While I appreciate the film’s fine attempts to instill personality into the characters before the inevitable zombie apocalypse, alternating between idiot employees and 80’s drugges made for a mess that was so bad you couldn’t help but laugh, if not for all the wrong reasons.

In most zombie movies there are generally a few people you can sympathize with, a few people that you really don’t want to die because they are awesome in some way shape or form. This movie contains no such characters. Truth be told, you kind of want to root for the zombies after a point. While I give minor credit for the poor old mortician, you’ll probably find yourself applauding after awhile when one of the zombies scores a brain-eating victory.

Okay, so I’m being a little bit harsh here. To the character’s credit they do come up with some good ideas at various points throughout the movie. When the first zombie comes up the medical employees attempt to replicate the head bashing trick that they note worked in Night of the Living Dead, for example. Several characters are also quite good at reacting under pressure, especially when it comes to barricading doors after zombies unexpectedly clamber onto the scene.

Unfortunately these are not your average zombies. No sir Return of the Living Dead employs zombies that defy all zombie logic. They will still move with their heads cut off. They will run and perform amazing feats that you would not expect a slow mindless zombie to be capable of. Yet perhaps the most interesting feature of these zombies involves their intelligence. These are some of the smartest zombies I’ve ever seen. Not only are they capable of almost clear speech, they are adept at setting up ambushes. That last part provides some of the finest moments in the movie, as police reinforcements end up getting ambushed and eaten in increasingly amusing ways throughout the movie.

Taken for what it is, Return of the Living Dead isn’t a completely worthless movie. It has its moments, but they are few and far between compared to the build-up it takes to get to them. Yet at the same time I can’t honestly recommend it as highly as most do. If you want a good zombie movie, catch a Romero film. If you want something laughably awful, then you’ve come to the right place with this movie.